Hiring a virtual assistant in the Philippines is easy, if you know where to look.
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Over the years I have had several experiences where I’d hire Filipino for remote work –After years of working together I even met, in person, the first virtual assistant I ever hired –who later became my travel buddy and helped me turn Hobo with a Laptop into a trusted brand. Marriage followed, and now we have to sons.
One hell of a plot twist.
You didn’t come here for that travel story though. This article is not about marrying your virtual assistant.
This article will show you why, how and where I find remote staff in the Philippines sight unseen, beyond Zoom calls.
Why I Trust Filipinos For Remote Work
I’ve lived in Asia well over a decade, I’ve been a blogger hiring virtual assistants from the Philippines just as long. I know a thing about a thing or two.
While mileage will vary, I’ve got the inside track on how to hire Filipino with a slant towards virtual assistants in the Philippines. And I found and hired them all online, through Virtual Staff Philippines.
From copywriting to social media management, more than one virtual assistant from the Philippines has played a pivotal role in my success building this blog into a six figure income during the pandemic, and Filipino remote workers come with an affordable salary expectation.
In this article, I focus solely on hiring Filipinos as contractors; you pay a rate, and you don’t pay deductions for their taxes, healthcare, social security, pensions, whatever. Just like a gig economy job. Simple, as.
But it is typical to pay a “13th month” right before Christmas –a full month’s salary as a bonus, every year. They count on this, factor it into your budget.
The average daily minimum wage in the Philippines ranges from 290 PHP to 537 PHP –that’s $5.23 USD to $9.69 USD as per TimeDoctor. So a “13th month” isn’t hard to accommodate.
Super Sneaky Pro Tip for Hustlers in Hard Times
I won’t lie –I’ve done it myself (when I wrote my first book) and friends of mine still do; get a remote job in the West, “ghost” outsource your own work to a Filipino VA, charge the employer Western rates, pay Filipino rates to your contract work virtual assistant.
It’s called “geoarbitrage”. Earn USD, spend pesos. Keep the difference. Profit.
You could take on multiple online jobs at once with this strategy. Just sayin’. Ensure you’re complying with any and all working contracts and/or agreements to stay out of legal grey areas, and profit.
Can You Afford $200 USD Per Month?
Filipino virtual assistant salary expectations are incredibly low by Western standards, but reasonable by Filipino standards. After living in Palawan, Philippines on and off and on again as a home base for 8 years or so as of 2024 I can honestly tell you what a fair rate is without exploiting anyone.
Palawan is a generally middle class island in the Philippines, with cheap flights to and from Manila that make it a suburb of that city for Filipino working professionals. Many live in Palawan, work in Manila.
Salaries are higher here than other parts of the country, and yet, my friend who is a marketing manager for the biggest (and most expensive) signage and printing company in the region still makes 10,000 PHP per month –that’s roughly $200 USD. In fact, I am eyeing her to be my next VA for the same rate.
I have other friends that work in hospitality 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, and they also make 10k PHP per month. It’s a salary norm.
However, their local employers are likely paying their required deductions.
When getting hired from Westerners and digital nomads as contractors, Filipinos may expect a touch more, but not much more –you could negotiate 12k PHP (approx $240 USD) per month for your first virtual assistant, or hey, if you want to shine them on, 15k PHP ($300 USD) per month would be an enticing offer for any virtual assistant in the Philippines.
I’ll get more into salary expectations when you hire Filipino later in the article, but thus far I think I’ve set the stage.
Above all; do not feel guilty for paying $200-$300 USD per month (or above if specialised) when you hire a Philippines virtual assistant.
Why?
Rent cost is often shared and less than $100 USD per month, families are a tight-knit collectivist and Christian unit like the good old days of Western culture before feminism ruined it (the Philippines are pretty much matriarchal and not to be fucked with) –they share the cost of living, they take care of eachother in ways we ourselves selectively forgot.
Transportation, rent, mobile phone plans, food, and even beer is incredibly cheap. I pay $10 USD for a month’s data on my phone, over 24GB plus unlimited calls and texts nationwide.
In the Philippines, we are not paying a hundred bucks for a tray of chicken at the butcher counter like they are currently in Canada due to Q1 2024 inflation and Trudeau’s nonsense.
You’re hiring a conservative twenty-something self-starter, fresh out of college from a country that doesn’t capitalize on student debt like the West does. Education is cheap here, too.
If you apply “cultural relativism”, as in, look at your Filipino virtual assistant salary through the lens of Western goggles, you might feel guilty.
Don’t.
Their circumstances are far different than yours, far cheaper; they don’t have winter, there’s little or none long commutes, expensive food, expensive healthcare, expensive daycare, you name it.
Even McDonalds is less than half the price here. I get a Double Quarter Pounder Combo with large fries and drink for about $6 USD when I feel like indulging in seed oil buffets.
I had a live-in nanny every weekend for $16 USD per day/night (24 hours) and I was paying much more than most.
Dust that white guilt off your shoulders, you’re not exploiting anyone. In fact, the demand for virtual assistant jobs in the Philippines is incredibly competitive –they want your business, very much so. And the seemingly lower wages are a goldmine locally.
They live in fucking paradise.
You live in a cement, expensive shit hole now. You got aliens voting in your elections, your contry has lost the plot. New York or Paris, anyone? I’ll pass.
Asia is prospering while your country is falling apart. It’s apples and oranges, at this point. I will never go back to Canada because it’s so awesome here in Palawan, Philippines.
If anything, I’d feel bad for your own countrymen and women (and xis, xers, theys, thems, and whatever the other fuck other pronouns the West has concocted recently). Reserve your guilt for the next election in your own country.
The Philippines are doing just fine.
If anything, they feel bad for you.
How to Hire Remote Staff in the Philippines
I’ll cut to the chase; 99% of the time, I’ve used Virtual Staff Philippines every time I’ve hired a Filipino.
Before I found this website, I spent a lot of time in the research phase, asking around on Facebook when I had Facebook, and turning over all the wrong stones with terrible results.
I had no idea how to hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines –and I made costly mistakes, like paying too much (they don’t take a long view; pay too much, they flake out and disappear, or they marry you and then try to take everything from you in the divorce using your sons as collateral ha ha ha, true story bro).
Never overpay, and never pay in advance, period.
Jokes aside, with Virtual Staff Philippines you can find multiple candidates (unlimited) within weeks and try them all out, and keep the ones you like best. Then cancel your account.
Virtual Staff Philippines cost $99/month, but I would always hire Filipino within a couple weeks and cancel payment before the next billing period –so finding several candidates and trying them out would only cost me $99 USD flat.
That’s nothing as far as business expenses go. Click here to check them out for yourself.
Post a job, message applicants, interview them in live chat or video call or both, click the “send offer” or “hire staff” button, you’re done.
They verify job seeker accounts to ensure they know where they live if you get ripped off for any reason. The Philippines is a high trust society. Like we used to be.
You can pay staff through the website, or directly. It isn’t Upwork (thank gosh that site sucks) and you can contact your hires off platform, direct.
Pay staff on a schedule you decide, and like I said, they’re contractors so you don’t pay their taxes or healthcare, et al. It’s all in their FAQ.
And like I said; never pay in advance. Get results, first. Tell them up front, no advances.
Trust me on that last one.
What Can Remote Filipino Workers Do?
The Philippines is home base to more than just virtual assistants.
Virtual Staff Philippines breaks down a few examples of jobs hiring Filipinos and the salary expectations that go with them:
Virtual Assistant | $2.50 - $10.00 |
Customer Support | $2.50 - $8.50 |
Billing Specialist | $2.50 - $8.00 |
Web Developer / Programmer | $4.00 - $20.00+ |
Graphics Designer | $2.75 - $10.00 |
Data Entry | $2.00 - $5.00 |
Amazon / eBay VA | $2.50 - $8.50 |
Bookkeeper | $2.50 - $12.50 |
Accountant (CPA) | $4.00 - $15.00 |
Telemarketer | $2.00 - $6.50 |
SEO Specialist | $3.00 - $10.00 |
Video Editor | $3.00 - $12.00 |
Content Writer | $2.75 - $8.00 |
Source (PDF) |
Filipinos are incredibly agile, and they work at world class levels.
As an aside, it was a virtual assistant from the Philippines who I trained with this course that managed and grew my Pinterest account to surpass 6k followers in a year or so, and at one time or another, bring in more traffic to this blog than freaking Google.
Pinterest! Who knew?
Simply put, hiring a Filipino can seriously increase your bottom line. Case and point, this blog you’re currently looking at did 6 figures for many years until Google took a dump on me and locked me in their basement.
Virtual Assistants Aren’t Magicians
As I mentioned previously, I trained my Pinterest manager with an online course and I got excellent results. Had I not done that, maybe I wouldn’t have got such great results.
Their success is tied to your candor; are you willing to train them properly? I go ‘blue sky’ with every hire to ensure our expectations line up, and you should probably do that, too.
I have “standard operating procedures” that I pass down from one hire to the next, as they churn. Writing those SOPs was the duty of the first VA I ever hired, and subsequent hires have improved upon them.
I’ve noticed that Asian culture often reveals itself through a lack of follow up questions or clarification; they don’t want to look stupid, and they definitely don’t want to be annoying. Be sure to ask if they have any questions, no question is to stupid, and try them out on a few tasks before you let them go autonomous.
If you let them go autonomous too early, they feel like they got thrown into the deep end without a life jacket –it’s kind of mean, because they really want and need the salary you’re offering, and it is your job to ensure their success, too.
They are not mind readers, and they didn’t grow up in your country. Fill in the blanks –but first you have to identify them.
Wrapping It Up
Now you know the thing. The secret of my success. One of the many I discuss on Hobo with a Laptop.
Got more questions? Leave me a voicemail. Check out my YouTubes if you like my spicy commentary.